Estes Park Opinion

Raising the bar for emergency response

Posted:
10/28/2012 09:58:11 AM MDT

I've been Estes Park's town administrator for just five months, but we've been through a lot together. The most impactful event for our community was undoubtedly the June 23 Woodland Heights Fire, which burned 27 residences. We're grateful that everyone was safely evacuated and only buildings were lost. And along with the entire community, we're making great efforts to ease the burden of recovery for the families who lost their homes. While we hope there isn't another tragedy in their future, we're certain that the Woodland Heights Fire will not be our last community emergency.

And so we're using the details of the Woodland Heights Fire as a model to improve our overall emergency response, striving for a higher level of service the next time a fateful call comes in to dispatch. So you ask, what exactly is being done to improve Estes Park's emergency response?

The primary response agencies were the Estes Valley Fire Protection District, Larimer County and the Town of Estes Park, and we received critical support from Rocky Mountain National Park and other fire districts. We gathered just days after the fire to evaluate and compile a list of items we want to improve. The majority of the fire took place outside of town limits and was under the operational control of the Fire District and the Larimer County Sheriff's Office. As I review this list, however, I want to focus on the efforts and perspectives of the Town of Estes Park.

Advertisement

And since Larimer County's staff and resources were directed to the much larger High Park Fire, the town provided a large number of staff to assist at the onset of the incident.

Our list of goals boiled down to communications, both internally and with the community. The County's High Park Fire Joint Information Center was utilized for the Woodland Heights Fire. It was overrun with calls and the relay of information was not as fast as we would like. In the future, we hope to keep this function local when an incident affects the community so greatly, even if it is under County jurisdiction. Our Visitor Center is now set up to serve this purpose and we're working to train more of our staff to handle this responsibility. We've set up a line at 970-577-3716 for recorded emergency information and have already used it during the first hours of the Fern Lake Fire in the national park. This line will be staffed during extended emergencies.

Our reverse notification system provided by the Larimer Emergency Telephone Authority, leta911.org, was used to inform residents in a defined geographic area of pre-evacuation and evacuation orders. It remains one of our most powerful tools. We continually work to get more people to sign up for alternatives to landlines including cell phones, texts and emails. We are also taking steps to establish business and lodging call groups within the system - because they can help us quickly relay emergency information to visitors, who are the most difficult people to reach in any emergency situation.

In another effort to reach our guests, we developed and distributed emergency preparation materials for businesses and lodges, including important emergency messages such as "avoid excessive use of your cell phone so that towers do not become overloaded during an emergency," and "motorists should avoid the area surrounding the emergency." This information, at estes.org/emergency, has been distributed to local businesses/lodges with help from Visit Estes Park, the Estes Area Lodging Association and Estes Valley Partners for Commerce. We will also guide businesses to create their own emergency plans at programs planned for next spring.

Speaking of cell phones -- the Town's Emergency Manager, Police Commander Eric Rose, is advocating for expanded bandwidth with cell service providers so towers aren't overloaded like they were on June 23. And because even our emergency responders and information officials could not make vital phone calls, he is also establishing priority phone service for emergency services officials to facilitate emergency communications.

We're increasing our online communications, and you will soon see our staff communicating through social media. Many people depend on social media such as twitter and facebook to get timely information. You can follow me on Twitter @EstesTownAdm. I'll be posting information about Town issues and will certainly be active during any emergency. We also have a Twitter account for the Town that we will be using more in the future. You can follow the Town @TownofEstesPark. And, since the simplest systems are sometimes the most reliable, we're looking for grants to fund a government advisory radio station to serve the Estes Valley.

Perhaps most importantly, we continue to place priority on training our staff since the investment in their knowledge of best practices and new technology will return benefits to our community tenfold. Our Emergency Manager, police officers, Public Information Officer, and senior administration have trained at FEMA's Emergency Management Institute as well as at the state and regional levels. We train with our fire, medical, ambulance and law enforcement partners to plan for all types of emergencies, and we collaborate with them on communications and critical response plans such as evacuations. We continue to develop our emergency operations and business continuity plans, and modernize our information technology contingency plans, so a major community emergency will not stop the everyday functions of your Town services.

Emergency management is an ever-evolving function, and new goals must continually be set. Like the Woodland Heights Fire, the next incident will become the model we use to improve our response. And we'll keep raising the bar with you and your family in mind.

Article Comments

We reserve the right to remove any comment that violates our ground rules, is spammy, NSFW, defamatory, rude, reckless to the community, etc.

We expect everyone to be respectful of other commenters. It's fine to have differences of opinion, but there's no need to act like a jerk.

Use your own words (don't copy and paste from elsewhere), be honest and don't pretend to be someone (or something) you're not.

Our commenting section is self-policing, so if you see a comment that violates our ground rules, flag it (mouse over to the far right of the commenter's name until you see the flag symbol and click that), then we'll review it.